A Return to Wine Country

If you have read our blog for a few years, you know how enamored we are with El Dorado and Amador Counties in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in California. For us, this is wine country.

Not only do we find the wines that please our palates, we love catching up with our friends, Bill, Wayne and Greg and their Excellent Adventure performances. We caught up with them on Friday night at Chateau Davell's  new tasting room.

Listening to good music, drinking good wine and watching the sunset, it just doesn’t get any better.

We followed Bill and Wayne’s Excellent Adventure over to Distant Cellars in Amador County on Saturday afternoon where we discovered Tribute, a very good red blend.

Groupies

And, of course we ended up at The Wine Smith on Saturday evening. (I guess you could say we are their fan club.)

When one is on an adventure, one doesn’t always know where they will be sleeping. We have stayed at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds once before where we parked on a hill overlooking the race track, which was okay and that was where we expected to be parked on this visit. We were surprised when we were directed to park near the event and fairground offices.

Friday we found ourselves in the midst of a classic car show and chili cook-off.

Saturday evening the sound of the car races was deafening (not a big deal as we spent the evening at The Wine Smith. All was quiet when we returned to The Wanderer.)

After a couple of wine tastings in Camino on Sunday, Bill and Zacharie treated us to a most delicious meal (and political discussion) at their lovely home. Tuesday evening we said good-bye to our good friends

and moved over to Amador County.

With each visit to Amador County we become more enchanted. You have heard us say before that we really like small towns. In the wine country of Amador there seems to be a small town about every 5-10 miles. The county population is 38,244; the county seat is Jackson with a population of 4,651. The largest city is Ione with 7,918. A number of the “cities” have populations less than 1000. Our favorite is the charming little town of Sutter Creek (population 2500.)

Parts of Amador County remind us of Tuscany, Italy with brown rolling hills dotted with green trees. With over 50 wineries in the approximately 600 square miles, it is a wine lovers paradise. (Especially if your palate leans toward dry reds like Zinfandel, Syrah and Barbera. ) Our longtime favorite is Borjon. Last year ABN discovered the sparkling wines from Le Mulet Rouge,

She came away with 2 raspberries and one peach.

This visit we found a new favorite, Renwood. Its tasting room and wines rival those of Napa, yet it is affordable.

The Wanderer was parked at 49er Village RV Resort in Plymouth (population 1,005). There we met Gold Star parents, Ron and Marty, from Bandera, TX, who are now full timing in their RV. Connecting with other Gold Star parents is good for our souls as it allows us to talk with understanding about our fallen heroes.

Today we left Amador County, heading east through the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains. Here are a few of the views along CA 88 and US 395.

And then there was this.

The next couple of days will be quite boring with sporadic cell service as we drive across the Nevada desert; destination Zion National Park in Utah where we will meet up our good friend Roger.

 (At this point, we do not want to talk about college football.)

Note to email subscribers, hitting reply to the email notification of a new post will send your reply out somewhere in cyber space and we will never know of your comments.  If you wish to comment, please do so in the comment section on the blog site or send a note using the email address you have in your contact list. 

Revisits and New Gems

Our search for good zinfandels took us back to the Dry Creek region of Sonoma County California.

Parking The Wanderer at Alexander Valley RV Park in Healdsburg, we set out to do some tastings. First we revisited a couple of our longtime favorites, St. Anne’s Crossing,

and Pezzi King from the Wilson Family Wineries as well as Foppiano’s. At the suggestion of a friend, we checked out some other vineyards and came away with a couple of gems, Limerick Lane (especially their Old Vine, Block 1910) and Martinelli for good zins and a fun tasting room.

Of course we couldn’t be in Sonoma County and not visit our good friend, Trudee

who lives on a farm and is a locksmith in Sonoma.

With The Wanderer pretty much loaded with zinfandels from Sonoma and pinot noirs from Washington and Oregon, it was time to revisit our dear friend and excellent winemaker, Bill, in Eldorado County.

Bill and Randy go way back, like all the way to their high school days at A&M Consolidated. Not only does he make exceptionally good wine for Jodar Winery, Bill is a very talented musician. We always have a grand time listening to Bill and Wayne at The Wine Smith in Placerville.

Over the years of visiting Bill, we have become acquainted with a lot of folks, some we now call friends. Wayne, with the help of his wife, Isabell, barbecued some amazing ribs and fixings. and invited us as well as Bill and Zachrie, to their home for dinner. 

Another gem, Zacharie is the new owner at The Wine Smith.

Such a fun gal!

Yep, made of wine corks.

With friends,

we braved the near 100° temperatures

to listen to Bill andWayne’s Excellent Adventure at Skinner Winery on Sunday afternoon.

With more great memories in our bank, we left the Eldorado County Fairgrounds where we were camped for four days.

(Not exactly a pretty site, water and electricity but no sewer and certainly no Wi-Fi, we were one of three RVs, the showers were clean and spacious; at $35 a night in California, we were pleased. Actually we liked it better than our previous stay at the KOA which was $65 and it is closer to The Wine Smith. )

Next we headed over to Amador County and the Jackson Rancheria Casino Resort RV Park.

For an extra $10 (that would be $45) a night, we had full hook-up, concrete slab, high speed internet, laundry facility and a beautiful walking path. 

The staff was very friendly; we couldn’t find anything we didn’t like here. I’d say we found a gem!

Many of you have been a recipient of a glass and maybe a bottle of Borjon Zinfandel or Barbera, so you know it is a favorite of ours from Amador County  

(and, yes we stopped in to say hello and to pick up our wine club shipment.)

We had planned to do a bit of tasting in other Amador wineries, but many were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Good thing as we were just about to the end of our wine budget.) However, we did wander into Sutter Creek (a gem in itself)

So love the small towns!

and found the Scott Harvey tasting room. The wine was good but the real treasure was the tasting room host.  Enthusiastic about Sutter Creek and Amador County, he sent us down the street to taste some sparkling wine at Le Mulet Rouge. (After a taste of the California Sparkling Wine, ABN was hooked! Even though there was no almond flavoring it had an almond taste.)

He strongly recommended we make a visit to the Union Inn over in Volcano. So we did. 

It was obviously a popular place with the locals as folks greeted one another on the comfortable patio. The food was good, especially the heirloom tomato salad, but what really got our attention was the smooth stout on nitro. (Does anyone see a theme here? We do like our zins and dark brews.)

Sadly, our time in wine country has come to an end, but we will return!  

Some of you have inquired about the wildfires, fortunately we have not seen any. There has been some haze but no smoke. Temperatures have hovered in the high nineties, reaching 100+ at times. With lack of high humidity, it cools to a very comfortable temperature in the evenings.

The Wanderer is pointed east; next stop, Hoover Dam.

Note to email subscribers, hitting reply to the email notification of a new post will send your reply out somewhere in cyber space and we will never know of your comments.  If you wish to comment, please do so in the comment section on the blog site or send a note using the email address you have in your contact list.

Saying Good-bye for now.

"Just where did we go wrong?"

After not being on the tandem for about a month, we headed to Folsom (yes, like in the prison) on Friday to ride the American River Bike Trail. We rode it a few years back and knew it would be a beautiful ride. We would like to say it was a perfect ride (and it was almost.) Toward the end of the ride, we made one little miscalculation and found ourselves trying to cross a busy street. We advanced across the first lane of traffic, and were waiting in the middle for a break to cross over to the bike lane. Apparently that was not acceptable. We did make it safely to the bike lane; in the process we learned California has their share of rednecks as we were called  "stupid," "idiots," etc. by passing motorists.

It is a beautiful trail and we would have loved to share a few of the many photos and video's we shot, but ABN accidentally deleted all of them. Here are a couple from 2012.

Another gorgeous California farmers' market, this one is in Placerville.

And we discovered The Fork Lift, for lack of a better description; it is like a Whole Foods on steroids.

Where could we possibly store all of our produce purchases in The Wanderer's

small galley? In a produce hammock, of course!

Enjoying the bounty from the Farmers Market; roasted vegetables and peaches on the Green Egg and fresh ravioli.

Although the fire continues to burn in southern Amador County, it is mostly contained and the smoke has pretty much cleared here in El Dorado County. Sunday, with our wine maker friend, we wandered over to northern Amador County to do some tasting. We were pleased to find the smoke had pretty much cleared there also.

Tasting Room at Wilderotter, Their Ambrosia is a very good blend

Bill and Randy at Borjon, which continues to be a favorite.

This evening we said good-bye to Placerville, our friend, Bill and our friends at Wine Smith. The wine, music and people of El Dorado County feed our souls and makes us hungry to return.

Tomorrow we will pack up and point The Wanderer toward Paso Robles.

It is so good to be back in El Dorado County!

This article in the San Francisco Examiner pretty well sums it up. We have come out here every year since 2012 and have gotten to know some folks; and it doesn’t hurt that one of the local winemakers is an old friend of Captain's from their high school band days. Bill still plays a guitar and is part of the Bill and Wayne duo; Wayne plays a mean harmonica. It just happened that Wayne was hosting a barbecue on Saturday evening and we were invited. (Wayne’s barbecue ribs are right up there with Captain's!) But the best part of the evening was sitting around the patio after dinner listening to Wayne and Bill and a couple of other guys playing their music. 

Fortunately where we were, the smoke from the fire in Amador County was not that bad.

On Monday we went to the Fair Play region and the air was pretty thick, in some places there were ashes on the outdoor tables.  

Wine is a funny art.  We revisited some of the wineries in Fair Play that we really liked in previous years but were not wowed with the wines this time.

We did like Toogood, especially their port (maybe because the tasting was in a really neat wine cave.)

Last year we were quite smitten with Mastroserio’s cab, but this year, not so much. 

The wine maker, Ruggero Mastroserio plays a saxophone. He also has a friendly dog that understands only Italian.

Tuesday we tasted in the Camino area and were pleased that they are having a good year.  We like the Super Tuscan blend at Chateau Davell. We bought an interesting cider at Bumgarner’s; at first we declined the sample since we really aren’t into cider, but with encouragement we sampled and what a surprise! Not sweet at all, just a nice, crisp taste. Yep, a bottle is coming home with us.

Tipsy Tuesday was at our friend Bill’s winery, Jodar. He indulged us by opening a 2008 merlot that was excellent. (We understand a Tipsy Tuesday was held on our patio at home, too. Hmm...)

The area received a much welcomed rain on Monday evening and Tuesday and the temperature is much cooler. Today the air at the campsite is pretty clear.

The good news………..we now have two wheels for the tandem! Hopefully we will get at least one ride in before we move on.

Now, if you have been one of those that get our blog posts in your email box and have replied  by clicking reply, well we are sad to say we have not received your reply.  I don’t know where the replies go (somewhere out in Google space,) they just don’t get to us. (I think it says somewhere noreply.) So, if you have something to say you can send it to the email address you have in your contacts, go to the blog and comment, private message us on Facebook, send us a text or you could actually call us (I know that is so old school.)

Today we are having a new windshield put in the pick-up and a repair on a chip in The Wanderer’s windshield. I guess both vehicles took a bit of a beating in the 2600 miles. We were able to get on location repair service, so we can sit around the campsite and wait for the technician to come to us. I guess that would be a good time to do some laundry.